Driving Me Crazy
by OzGeek
Summary: McGee struggles to remain sane as Tony and Ziva fight in the car on a long trip. Two chapters. Sort of simultaneously angst and humor. Now complete.
1. On the road again

**Chapter 1 – On the road again**

The steering wheel groaned in complaint as McGee tightened his grip yet again. Taking pity on his fellow innocent bystander, McGee eased his grasp a little. It wasn't the fault of the round plastic object in front of him that Tony and Ziva had been fighting like small children for the last hour. It wasn't its fault that they kept niggling at each other, deliberately provoking one another until one or both snapped and it certainly wasn't its fault that they had fallen into a vicious perpetual war.

The whole argument cycled with monotonous predictability. First there was the silence, oppressive like a hot humid day, which built slowly but inevitably until the first fat drops of acid rain began to fall – a spiteful jab here, a sharp retort there. The drips, sparse and irregular at first, slowly increased in voracity until, all at once, the deluge of mighty argument descended upon the little group with accompanying lightning and thunder. After a few minutes of wild fury, the downpour would ease up and peter out to a dark brooding sulk which heralded the coming of the next silence.

It had started first thing this morning and showed no signs of abating. At headquarters there had been opportunity to shelter from the storm. The confines of the car, however, offered no such sanctuary. There was just him, his little steering wheel and them.

Currently Tony and Ziva were in sulk mode and, although the solid wall of silence allowed his perforated eardrums much needed recuperation time, the anticipation of precursor tremors was causing such an agonizing stiffness across his neck and shoulders that he actually looked forward to the next cataclysmic eruption. Then it began again: the seething silence gave way to the first jab of pain and they were away, dancing down the same never-ending path.

A dull throbbing started up behind his eyes joining his shoulder and neck pain in a glorious cacophony of total frustration. He wanted to scream at them. To screech the car to a halt in the middle of 80 mile an hour traffic and yell at them until they were stunned into silence. Then boot them out of the car and roar off into the distance leaving them stranded, abandoned and blissfully out of earshot.

His headache grew exponentially with his daydream and before he knew it, nausea had taken root and cold beads of sweat had squeezed their way out of his pores. A quick check of the GPS told him it wouldn't be long now. If he could ride out this storm and perhaps one or two more, he would make it.

As the conversation reached yet another crescendo, he ground his teeth against the pain and convulsively swallowed the pooling saliva, a warning sign of a full blown nausea attack. Sparkles showered his visual field as the yelling fire-worked around the car.

"Veer left," said the calm clear voice of the navigation aid.

Then he saw it: the turn off to the crime scene. He thanked whatever deities were guiding him today that he had not been too distracted to notice the sign or too deafened to hear the audio prompt. Then, almost simultaneously, he cursed the exact same deities for not smiting Tony and Ziva where they sat.

Up ahead he saw Ducky's van and another NCIS car, probably Gibbs. He blocked out the local hostilities and focussed his attention on attaining his target. He never thought someone else's untimely demise would be the reason for his salvation but there it was.

Tony and Ziva were in sulking mode again by the time he pulled up at the curb, sweating, shaking and pervaded by an all encompassing malaise. He cared not that they remained sitting as he ripped the car door open. He paid no mind that they did not follow him as he strode to the taped off square in the front yard. His only thought was on seeking adult conversation between two rational people. Or better yet, silence from a dead one. He began to appreciate Ducky's choice of vocation.

"You took your time, McGee," Gibbs growled, "should have let Ziva drive."

McGee closed his eyes and let the frustration pass least he gun down his boss in cold blood before multiple witnesses. Resolved that Gibbs would escape with his life, McGee peeled his eyelids apart and stated bluntly, "they couldn't decided which one should drive."

"Where are they now?"

McGee gritted his teeth. He was almost sure Gibbs didn't mean to accuse him of keeping them in the car: almost.

"I don't know," he forced out.

McGee snatched the camera from Gibbs' hand, not even bothering to shoulder the strap and stormed past him to begin taking shots before Gibbs could say any more. His head was still thumping; the bile was still percolating at the base of his throat. One more question and someone was going to die. Someone else, he corrected looking down at the body spreadeagled on the lawn, and the next body was not going to be so neatly contained. No it would be smeared across the lawn in ragged pieces, comprehensively disembowelled with entrails hanging from that nearby tree….

"You alright, Timothy?"

Ducky's voice drew him reluctantly back to reality.

He stared at the ME in a daze and suddenly noticed how old he looked with his solid blue eyes sunken slightly into his head.

"Timothy?"

"Oh, yes. Sorry, Ducky. Tony and Ziva were arguing the whole trip. It's a little draining."

"Ah yes," Ducky sympathised. "They've been a little on edge lately. I put it down to sexual tension."

McGee blinked as Ducky wondered off as if he'd said something entirely politically correct.

Bizarre as it was, Ducky's little interlude had allowed him to calm a little and concentrate on the job at hand. The wild thumping in his head had even toned down to a slow steady beat behind his eyes.

Studying the gruesome scene through the camera's lens, McGee felt a sense of purpose again. He levelled himself and took another shot. Then the air crystallized around him and he realised Ziva and Tony had arrived wordlessly beside him. He found himself counting down as the silence thickened; his heart pounding as the moment grew closer.

Then it came: one tiny remark from Tony regarding Ziva's driving habits sparked the rage again. The cavalcade of verbal attacks speared through him and he felt the camera slip from his grasp as he lurched forward into oblivion.


	2. Conception

**Chapter 2 - conceptions**

"Timothy, can you hear me?"

_Voices echoed around his head – one male, one female. The tone was obvious but the words made no sense at all._

"Timothy, you've taken a bit of a turn. You're going to be fine."

_Angry yelling reverberated through his memory. Even with the nonsensical words, he could discern the whole exercise was pointless, designed only to wound, not to reach resolution._

"We need to roll you onto your side to help your breathing, alright?"

Green filled his vision; spikes pricked his cheek. The acrid smell of something wet lying against his lips caused him to retch.

"On three: one, two, three."

Dizziness surged over him as his body was shifted around a central axis. The disgusting, burning sensation in his mouth aligned itself with the putrid liquid trailing away from him to tell him more than he wanted to know about the gap in his memory. The world swirled from grassy blades to someone's face.

He started, suddenly aware that he was looking straight into Ducky's kindly blue eyes at close quarters.

"How are you feeling Timothy?"

His stomach cramped threateningly while an almost blinding headache attempted to overpower him.

"I've felt better," he rasped.

He let his eyelids fall and tried to marshal his body into some semblance of order.

"Timothy, can you hear me?"

His eyes opened on reflex and he found himself looking at Ducky again. Though still seething, his stomach was on the retreat and his headache had metamorphosized into a grey haze. "What happened?" he asked dully.

"You tell me," Ducky invited.

"They were arguing," McGee started slowly, closing his eyes and replaying the giddy events over in his mind. "They shouldn't keep fighting. They're grown ups. They don't really hate each other, they just get so mad sometimes and then… they're so loud. I can't even understand some of the words but I know what they mean."

"Have you been feeling unwell today at all, Timothy?" Ducky asked.

"I get sick when they fight. Then they forget all about the fighting and they're friends again."

"Who?" Ducky inquired carefully. "Who become friends again when you're sick?"

McGee could see their concerned faced clearly in his mind's eye, united over him. "Mom and dad," he explained quietly, his voice trailing to a whisper. "Mom and dad."

Ducky rocked back from McGee and rubbed the tips of his fingers over his forehead as he thought. This was getting a little more complicated than a simple collapse. On the bright side, that Masters was proving its worth. "Timothy," he started again, "do you know where you are?"

McGee's eyes opened and he blinked at Ducky for a moment trying to smooth over the discontinuities as two worlds collided in his brain.

"Um, at the crime scene," he finally decided.

"That's right," Ducky encouraged, "and who was fighting?"

McGee struggled to fit the fragments floating about his mind into some sort of logical configuration but they refused to click into place.

"Not mom and dad?"

"That's right," Ducky confirmed.

Ducky looked away from him and spoke over his head.

"How long have you two been arguing?"

McGee cringed slightly at Ducky's school master tone

Silence.

"Approximately," Ducky demanded impatiently, "…a few minutes, an hour, the day, a week?"

"An hour," said Tony.

"All day," Ziva countered.

"That wasn't an argument," Tony retorted.

"Calling me a.."

A loud whistle from Ducky silenced them.

"It seems McGee has a previous experience of his parents fighting and your arguing is triggering an early childhood defence mechanism."

"You are saying we caused this?" Ziva snapped.

"No," Ducky said deliberately. "I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that your arguments have triggered a childhood failsafe mechanism that Timothy used in times of stress at home. At some point he worked out that when he was sick, his parents stopped fighting. The chances are on the first occasion he was actually sick and his mind, immature as it was, made the connection. From then on every time they fought, he would get sick, they would stop fighting and the whole sordid process reinforced itself."

"They took me a therapist," McGee said quietly from where he lay.

Ducky's interest veered back to McGee. "Did it help?" he inquired with interest.

"Sort of: he told them if they kept it up, they'd kill me. He said something about arguing in private and not in front of me."

"Well," Ducky smiled, "I think he was exaggerating you paying the ultimate price for their folly but the advice is sound."

"So what you're saying is that we have to make a private appointment to argue?" Ziva surmised in disgust.

"What I'm saying," Ducky's tone had a razor sharp edge to it, "is that you two need to grow up and get on with your jobs. Far from me to suggest violating our fine sexual harassment guidelines but it's time for you two grown ups to kiss and make up."

McGee felt the world spinning around him again as the palpable silence stretched before him into oblivion.

"OK." It was Tony's voice. "We'll do it for Probie."

"I agree. We will do this for McGee's sake. Not because this misogynistic, Neanderthal…"

"Then we are in agreement," Ducky cut in.

"We are," Ziva capitulated.

"Good," Ducky approved. "Now let's see if we can get you a ride to hospital Timothy." Hoisting his weary body from the grass where it had been stationed so long, Ducky left the trio to themselves.

Silence.

More silence.

McGee's eyes flitted between Tony and Ziva, trying to assess the sit rep. If his body had not been so thoroughly exhausted, he would have made a run for home under the radar.

"You know," Tony started mischievously; "it's a shame because when you're fired up you get this glow about you and your eyes shine like beacons."

"I agree," Ziva responded in kind. "You are powerful and strong in the heat of battle: a very masculine response to threat."

"Yeah?" Tony asked suggestively.

"Oh yes," Ziva flirted.

"Will you STOP!" McGee pleaded urgently. "The last time this happened I got a baby sister."


End file.
